I should tell you a bit about what’s going on here. It’s 30 days out from the election and we figure that we should really ramp up our national politics coverage, so every day (hopefully BEFORE noon for the rest of the month) we’re bringing you a daily round-up of the stories on the blogs and in the news that might matter in the coming days. Comments are encouraged, as are tips. Here we go!\
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We’re 30 days from the election (register to vote!) and the story that\’92s been building is that McCain\’92s campaign has decided negative campaigning is the way to go. That\’92s no surprise, really. Early last month McCain\’92s campaign manager announced that \’93this election is not about the issues.\’94 While the Obama campaign continues to attack McCain on some of those silly issues like health care, John McCain’s lipsticked pitbull has responded to sliding poll numbers by attacking Obama’s limited ties to former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers. Her favorite attack seems to be that Obama is “palling around with terrorists,” (she said it three times Saturday) which would be a great attack if it were true. Palin likes to cite a New York Times article about Obama and Ayers (that must be one of the many newspapers she reads) that states the two “do not appear to have been close.” Palin also enjoys ignoring fact-checking by “liberal media” outlets like CNN (they’re not one of those newspapers, I suppose).\
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It’s interesting to note that Palin is yet to address her support (as recently as last year) of an anti-American secessionist group called the Alaskan Independence Party, but no matter.\
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McCain spokespersons have gotten in on the attack as well, responding to Obama’s criticism on John McCain’s desire to “turn the page” on the economic crisis (another one of those “issues”) by stating:\

“Americans need to ask themselves if they\’92ve ever befriended an unrepentant terrorist, or had a convicted felon help them buy their house \’97 because those aren\’92t smears, those are true facts about Barack Obama.\’94

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Not that Obama isn’t going personal. He’s called McCain “erratic in crisis,” and plans to attack him on the way he responds to the economic crisis (one of those silly issues, again) and things like the Russia-Georgia conflict (”We are all Georgians!”).\
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So what’s the spin from the right? Well, it’s no less strong than the spin from the left. RedState seems to like the “palling around with terrorist” thing, and they’re running with it, attacking any publication that dares to suggest Barack Obama is anything but a terrorist by proxy. The folks at the Corner are getting in on the action too. They’ve also got a reasonable argument for why Ayers matters, though they do suggest that the Keating Five scandal has “has been very, very, very much explored and discussed by the press,” but I don’t necessarily know if that’s true for this election cycle, anyway.\
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It will take a while for these attacks to start sinking in, I think. We won’t know how they’re working, from a polling perspective, for maybe a week. Maybe Americans will be resistant to swiftboating this go-round. But then again, maybe they won’t. We’ll check some polls in a week and see what’s up.\
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In other news, Geraldo’ Rivera’s face caught on fire. He’s fine (no word on the mustache, which gives him his power). I respect Geraldo in a sort of living-caricature-of-the-TV-news-man way (I think he’s the basis for Will Ferrell’s character in “Anchorman”), so I hope he’s okay. I mean, he’s basically the only news anchor who is known almost totally by his first name (I had to look up the spelling for the last name).\
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Update: McCain and the RNC are continuing their ‘foreignization’ of Obama by filing a complaint with Federal Elections Commission, alleging that Obama’s campaign is taking money from foreigners. That’s cute, considering McCain’s had to return a considerable amount of cash for just the same kind of thing. And DailyKos takes the questionable acquaintances stick to McCain and Palin.\
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Funny Update: Tina Fey does Sarah Palin in a Palin/Biden debate sketch.